A decade later, Oshkosh still learning lessons from historic floods

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JoAnn Neyhard, Kenneth Neyhard, Betty Waters and Brian Heidl gather on the steps of the Neyhard home on W. 8th Avenue as their basements flooded after the heavy rains. According to the residents their area often floods during heavy down pours. Joe Sienkiewicz/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Lori Stang, who lives on 600 block of W. 8th Ave., gets frustrated while trying to get Wisconsin Public Service to restore the power at her house so that she can pump more than three feet of flood water out of her furnished basement Monday morning, June 9, 2008. Stang bought the house, the one with maroon shutter, in August. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Floodwater from the previous day's heavy rain still covers part of the 600 block of W. 8th Ave Monday midmorning, June 9, 2008. The residents on the block blamed the flood problem on the sewage system. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Mike Cantrall, left, his nephew, Brandon, and niece, Tammy, help Kayla Pliskie pushing her car out of the flooding street after seeing her car stuck at the intersession of South Park Avenue and Delaware Street in the heavy rain Thursday, June 12, 2008. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Three girls watch the water rising on the intersession of South Park Avenue and Delaware Street as cars drive pass near South Park during the storm Thursday, June 12, 2008. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Pat Merrill, left, and Josh Koplin of Magnum Products of Berlin hold the hose while pumping the floodwater out of the basement Friday, June 13, 2008 at Lourdes High School. Magnum is one of several businesses donating their equipment and manpower to help Lourdes' cleanup. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Karen Dustrude, right, ties the sandbags as a group of volunteer parents and students help the flood damage at Lourdes High School Friday, June 13, 2008. Several local companies donated their equipment and manpower to help the Lourdes' cleanup. File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Acart of phone books and debris is dumped into a dumpster from the basement of River Center on the Campus of UW-Oshkosh. Water completely flooded the below ground shipping docks at River Center. Joe Sienkiewicz/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Ben Messerschmidt of Chief Industrial Services watches the water level slowly go down as his industrial pump sucks the water from the River Center shipping docks at UW-Oshkosh. The flooding was at the uppermost line about 4 feet from the cement after the storms. Joe Sienkiewicz/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Spivey lived in Brookside Apartments on North Westfield Street, along Sawyer Creek. Married just three months earlier, the flooding destroyed Spivey’s wedding dress, photo albums and memorabilia that she kept in the apartment basement.

Sewage contaminated the water that flooded the basement, so she had to throw away everything.

“I was devastated,” Spivey said. “It was a mess.”

She didn’t have renter’s insurance in 2008, but now she does. She also keeps belongings on shelves in plastic containers, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever live by water again.

Spivey learned the types of lessons Winnebago Emergency Management Director Linda Kollmann hopes other Oshkosh residents implement. Get flood insurance, know what it covers and use shelves in the basement, she said.

“I think (it) is a good time to remember these are things that you should probably take a look at,” Kollmann said. “The lessons we learned then still apply today.”

The city and county have recuperated since the 2008 floods thanks to an influx in funds.

Kollmann estimated Winnebago County residents suffered $29 million in property damage. All told, 2,400 people in the county applied for federal assistance.

FEMA provided $4.5 million to county residents plus $2 million to the public sector, which went to places like Lourdes High School, where classrooms were underwater and gym floors had to be replaced. Across Wisconsin, the wide-reaching flood devastation prompted FEMA to dole out $56 million in grants.

Officials reported at the time that the week of storms dumped 10 inches of rain on Oshkosh. It came after a rainy spring, a snowy winter and floods the previous year; the ground was saturated and the rivers were full.

In 2008, Lenz was an amateur emergency radio operator and weather spotter who passed on observations about the Oshkosh floods to officials. He said he drove past water spouting 20 feet in the air out of an open manhole.

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A manhole cover at the intersection of Main Street and Ceape Avenue bubbles with overflowing rainwater Thursday afternoon during a downpour.(Photo: File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Public Works Director James Rabe, who was lead stormwater engineer for Oshkosh in 2008, acknowledged the city sewer infrastructure had problems handling the stormwater during the floods because of an old and inefficient system.

“There’s 150 years worth of development that didn’t do anything to manage stormwater. So now we have a lot of catch-up work to do,” Rabe said.

He said updates to the sewer system were starting to take shape in March 2008, but residents were skeptical of the need for the projects because they didn't think Oshkosh had infrastructure problems that could lead to flooding.

The 2008 flood "re-energized" the city's commitment to tackling its sewer issues, Rabe said. Recent regulations like requiring stormwater retention ponds with each new building help the city manage the rain.

The city now spends $10 million annually on stormwater management projects to try to catch up, Rabe said. Each project is costly — a recently approved detention basin on North Main Street cost the city over $4 million — and won’t provide a quick fix.

“It’s not something that could be solved in a year or five years or even 10 years,” Rabe said. “It took our city 150 years to get to where we’re at. So these types of issues aren’t going to be able to be fixed fast.”

Could a flood today devastate Oshkosh like in 2008? Residents and officials hope not.

"We've learned a lot from that. We've made a lot of progress," Rabe said. "(But) I'm never going to say the problem is solved. At some point in time, Mother Nature's going to throw a bigger storm at us than we could ever be prepared for."

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Floodwater from the previous day's heavy rain still covers part of the 600 block of W. 8th Ave Monday midmorning, June 9, 2008. The residents on the block blamed the flood problem on the sewage system.(Photo: File/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)